Pierce Butler, 4th Viscount Ikerrin

Pierce Butler, 4th Viscount Ikerrin (c.1677-1711) was an Irish peer, politician and professional soldier who rose to the rank of Brigadier general. He was outlawed as a Jacobite in 1690, but was restored to his titles and estates in 1698.

He was the elder of the two sons of James Butler, 3rd Viscount Ikerrin and his wife Eleanor Redman, daughter and co-heiress of Colonel Daniel Redman of Ballylinch, County Kilkenny. His father was descended from John Butler of Clonamicklon (died 1330), who founded a junior branch of the great Butler dynasty whose head was the Duke of Ormonde. His mother's father was a Cromwellian army officer who purchased his substantial estates in County Kilkenny from his brother-in-law, Captain John Joyner, who had begun his career as a cook in the household of King Charles I.

Pierce was born at his mother's family home, Ballylinch, between 1677 and 1679. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. His grandfather, the 2nd Viscount, was a convert to the Church of Ireland, but his father and at least one of his aunts, Lady Meade, reverted to the Roman Catholic faith. For this reason his father gained the favour of the Catholic King James II of England, and became a captain in the Grenadier Guards. The 3rd Viscount died of smallpox in London in October 1688 and Pierce succeeded to the title.

James II was deposed after the Glorious Revolution and fled to France, and from there invaded Ireland. He summoned a Parliament, generally called the Patriot Parliament, at Dublin in 1689. It is sometimes said that Pierce "sat" in the Irish House of Lords in that Parliament, but since he can scarcely have been more than twelve years old at the time, he was presumably only present by proxy. Even his notional attendance was enough to have him outlawed after the ruin of James's cause at the Battle of the Boyne for his supposed loyalty to James. However the great Butler dynasty, of which the Butlers of Ikerrin were a junior branch, did not suffer greatly as a result of James's downfall, so that Pierce had plenty of influential Protestant relatives to plead on his behalf. Presumably the argument that the political beliefs of a small boy are not worth troubling about was successful. In any case his outlawry was reversed in 1698: Pierce was restored in his title and took his seat in the House of Lords in October 1698. Since a peer would not normally take his seat in the Lords until he came of age, this suggests that 1677 is the most likely year of his birth.

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